Podcast
[00:00:00] Stuart Wilson: Our business has never been ice baths. We’ve never done an ice bath workshop. The cold is part of the mythology, the breath work, the ice bath, the mindset training. These are all ways to allow us to control our nervous system. So that’s the whole goal of the Wim Hof Method. Dunking the head while your body’s in the ice bath and holding your breath doesn’t give any additional benefits.
[00:00:21] Stuart Wilson: It’s just pure risk. It’s actually the initial cold shock, which then triggers the benefits and gives all the health benefits people talk about. In terms of a business, it is probably the worst type of business because we’re training people who don’t need to ever come back to us again. So then if they never come back and they go somewhere else or they do it at home, they know how to do it safely, but also people come back for the aspect of the community.
[00:00:48] Scott Pressimone: Alright, so I am here with the founder of Breath inspired, Stuart Wilson. Thank you so much for joining me.
[00:00:55] Stuart Wilson: No problem.
[00:00:55] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. So I understand, Stu, that you are the first and only level two officially certified Wim Hof Method instructor in Thailand. Is that correct?
[00:01:03] Stuart Wilson: That’s correct. That’s one of the things, yeah.
[00:01:05] Scott Pressimone: So that’s a big deal.
[00:01:06] Stuart Wilson: Uh, I guess it’s all, it’s called Advanced Instructor now. I used to be the only one, can’t say that anymore. My wife Kam, who’s also an instructor, that is a certification and qualification in one specific modality, what we teach.
[00:01:21] Scott Pressimone: Well, let’s dig deeper into that. First, let’s give a kind of introduction about like breath inspired.
[00:01:26] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. Right. You’re the co-founder along with your wife Kam.
[00:01:29] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:01:29] Scott Pressimone: Right. But just give a brief introduction. What is Breath Inspired? What is it all about? What, what does this company do?
[00:01:35] Stuart Wilson: So, Breath Inspired is an organization, our organization, where we offer science backed breath work protocols, retreats, training, uh, experiences to enhance health wellbeing.
[00:01:53] Scott Pressimone: Good explanation. Um, well, so this brings up, I think, why I invited you onto the podcast. I’ve seen breath inspired, I’ve seen you, uh, all over the place over the last few years since I’ve been here. Right. I’d actually been really interested in, uh, cold water immersion and ice baths and whatnot, but I realized that I only was kind of hitting the tip of the iceberg.
[00:02:14] Scott Pressimone: I really didn’t, uh, understand what it is that you did. So the first thing you mentioned you focused on breath work, and can you give an explanation of that? Like what’s the difference between just going into an ice bath versus understanding breath work?
[00:02:27] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. Um. Thing is the, um, cold water immersion contrast therapy or ice baths that’s been practiced for hundreds, if not thousands of years, you know, is popular in Scandinavian countries.
[00:02:40] Stuart Wilson: Wim Hof was the one who popularized it modern, um, and, you know, brought it to the forefront in modern times. The Wim Hof Method also contains a breathing protocol to simplify it, allows the cold water immersion, or the ice bathing or cold exposure. It allows you to get more benefits from just doing an ice bath on its own.
[00:03:02] Stuart Wilson: What we teach with a method is that we teach people how to do, uh, ice bathing, cold water immersion correctly, safely, and to get the maximum benefits. So yeah, even if you’ve never done the training before and you go to places, do an ice bath and cold water immersion, you’re gonna get some benefits, but there’s ways to enhance that.
[00:03:23] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. That’s what we teach. Yeah.
[00:03:25] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. And that’s was very eyeopening to me, to be honest. I really did not understand the connection between breath work and, and ice bath. Yeah. Is that typical?
[00:03:33] Stuart Wilson: Uh, it is, but I think it’s, uh, you’ve gotta make the distinction of like breath work and then ice bath. When you do cold water immersion or an ice bath, you have to control your breathing.
[00:03:44] Stuart Wilson: You know, one for safety and to be able to go in the cold correctly. Uh, so does breath control while you’re in the ice. I don’t like to call that breath work because people tend to think that you should be hyperventilating or doing these, uh, weird techniques in the water, which, you know, from doing the training, you don’t do that in the ice.
[00:04:06] Stuart Wilson: We breathe controlled and steady. The breathwork side of it is what we do lying down in the classroom. And then the studies show that when you do the Wim Hof breathing technique and then go in in the ice, you get more benefits from just going in the cold separately. It works synergistic together.
[00:04:23] Stuart Wilson: However, you can still do an ice bath like you were doing and notice benefits like, um, lower inflammation, and you found that it also helps you to de-stress. But when we teach, uh, the Wim Hof Method and the other things we do really dive deep into what’s actually going on in the body, what’s going on in the mind, and now breathing protocols, breathing techniques can enhance that.
[00:04:46] Scott Pressimone: Mm-hmm. Well, let’s rewind a little bit ’cause I think we’re gonna dig deeper into the science. Mm-hmm. But I actually wanna talk more about your background. Yeah. Because this is not something you’ve been doing, uh, from the start. I, I want to talk about that contrast between what you were doing before and how you actually got into this industry.
[00:05:02] Scott Pressimone: Can you explain that background?
[00:05:03] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. So to keep it simple I was working in the financial industry. I’ve been working in it for many years, so I guess you would call it a high stress career, but I didn’t think that was bad. I’m a stress ed anyway. I love it. I was bald by the age of 18. I give you some idea of how much of a stress I am.
[00:05:22] Stuart Wilson: I get drawn to stressful things. I’m a skydiver. I’ve done hundreds of skydives, pretty extreme sports. Um, snowboarding, done the biggest swing jumps in the world, travel the world doing that. So I liked that high adrenaline stress environment. But what happened was, it was, it was not a, to to be clear, I didn’t really understand what was happening.
[00:05:46] Stuart Wilson: But looking back, I now know it was burnout. Hmm. So I’m living in Dubai and from the outside it looks like have an amazing lifestyle, great career, doing cool stuff. But then I realized I actually didn’t feel any happier doing this than I, as opposed to when I was a university student and I had no money.
[00:06:08] Stuart Wilson: I quit my job, took a break from my job, went traveling, and so I’m 49 years old now. This is when I was 34, 35. And I heard about ayahuasca. And the reason it appealed to me, I didn’t know anything about it, was a podcast I listened to. They were talking about how it can help people with, um, mental problems as such, and I assume that was my issue.
[00:06:32] Stuart Wilson: And so I went down that route.
[00:06:35] Scott Pressimone: Wow. So. This ayahuasca a I mean, ex Explain that to people that haven’t experienced it. What was that first experience like for you?
[00:06:43] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. Okay. So before I talk about my experience, just know that ayahuasca a plant medicine. It’s, uh, a brew that comes from the Amazon jungle and it’s got really popular and well known now.
[00:06:57] Stuart Wilson: But I would like to say it’s a tool, it’s a modality, which has its place. Uh, for me it was a good tool to get the ball rolling, but for others it might not be. And I also wanna make it clear it wasn’t ayahuasca that fixed anything. I’ll explain that in a moment. So I went to the Amazon jungle. What the whole process did for me doing these ayahuasca ceremonies was it didn’t fix a problem.
[00:07:24] Stuart Wilson: It just allowed me to realize the gap that was already there. The gap for me with was losing a lost, somehow lost connection with how I truly feel. So yeah, I achieved a lot financially and I guess successfully in business, whatever. I had a cool lifestyle. But on the pursuit of that, I lost really what made me feel happy and joy and give me you know, the passion, but for me, the ayahuasca experience really did have a power of powerful effect.
[00:07:56] Scott Pressimone: Okay. And then how does that then relate to what you’re doing today?
[00:07:59] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, so because, and I, I understood then that, um, I had this, this gap by the way, I did five ayahuasca ceremonies. Apparently that’s a lot.
[00:08:09] Stuart Wilson: I had no idea at the time, never taken psychedelics and never really knew much about it all. Never done meditation. So I didn’t really understand that type of thing, what was going on. But in the whole experience in the group and the facilitators and the shamans, you know, they sort of help you to, uh, process everything.
[00:08:29] Stuart Wilson: So I remember saying to the group, how can I maintain this like open-mindedness. And to, to put it in a simple way for me. The whole ceremonies and the time in the jungle was like an emotional reset, emotional and mental reset. So it gave me clarity on my mind. It put things in order. So when I was mentioning to the group, how can I maintain this when I go back to my normal life, I think it’s highly illegal to be drinking ayahuasca every weekend in Dubai or whatever, and you don’t wanna drink that, right?
[00:09:04] Stuart Wilson: So it was one of the, uh, participants there who’s a friend, he said, why do you not do the Wim Hof and breath work and things? And that sort of appealed to me straight away because of my extreme sports background. And I thought Wim Hof was a stunt man. I didn’t really know much. And I thought, well, that appeals to me, you know, it seems stressful.
[00:09:26] Stuart Wilson: I’m in. So I, um, so that’s when I got into and signed up and went on the first, uh, Wim Hof Method Winter Expedition in Poland.
[00:09:36] Scott Pressimone: Wow. So what was that first experience for you there?
[00:09:39] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, to be honest, when I got there, and I think day one we went in out in the snow, in bare feet, and then we got in the freezing river.
[00:09:47] Stuart Wilson: I was thinking, what the hell am I doing? You know, I’ve gone from one extreme to the other and, and I didn’t really understand it, but what, what happened was when we did the first breathwork session with Wim Hof and it was only a short session, maybe 25 minutes, I remember coming around from that thinking, oh, oh my God, this as that same for me, that as this same sort of reset type feeling that I got from the plant medicine.
[00:10:15] Stuart Wilson: And it appealed to me because it was me doing it. You know, I didn’t rely on anyone else to give me something. It wasn’t an external substance, it wasn’t an external thing, uh, getting done. To me, it was me generating that. So that’s what sent me down the path, not seeking out more experiences. What sent me down the path was trying to understand more of why breathing exercises, uh, breath in certain ways can have these, uh, very powerful effects mentally and physically.
[00:10:47] Scott Pressimone: Hmm. Well I think when you mention ayahuasca and breath work, I do think some people think woo woo. Some people think a fad. Mm-hmm. Right. Especially the ice bath portion. Right. It’s like, oh, that’s just a fad. A bunch of Silicon Valley guys are taking ayahuasca or buying an ice bath for their office.
[00:11:05] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:11:05] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:11:06] Scott Pressimone: It a fad?
[00:11:07] Stuart Wilson: Well, uh, well, when I first did Ayahuasca and I was telling my family and friends what I’m doing, my brother thought I’d gone, lost my mind because I mean, now we know a lot about it and there’s documentaries coming out, uh, explaining how we, you know, what it’s actually doing to us. Uh, but back then there wasn’t really much talk about it.
[00:11:27] Stuart Wilson: So, yeah, I think it just started getting talked a lot about, you know, in Silicon Valley and things like that, so there was like blogs popping up. So all I know, for me, it really worked to discover something internally then when I got into breath work. Exactly. That’s exactly, I’ve always avoided spiritual stuff or retreats.
[00:11:51] Stuart Wilson: Yoga retreats. My wife’s a yoga teacher. I’ve always avoided that because I just thought it was all woo woo. And what I liked about Wim Hof method was it’s science backed and it had a bunch of science, uh, studies, uh, with Wim Hof already and since been practicing it and teaching it more and more sciences coming out.
[00:12:10] Stuart Wilson: I mean, Andrew Huberman is talking a lot about the benefits of breath work and cold exposure and things like that. So it did appeal. It did seem woo woo, but that’s one of the reasons I wanted to learn it because my goal was to teach people like me who would never do this stuff, you know, who think it’s woo, and that, and that’s one of the, that’s one of the reasons we teach it in the way we do as well.
[00:12:33] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. So there is a part of the workshop ’cause again, full transparency, I came to a workshop and, uh, like I said before, it was not at all what I expected. Yeah. A part of that workshop, if you don’t mind divulging this, but there was a portion that you talked about kind of the sine waves or the wavelengths, uh, where people live, right?
[00:12:50] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. And I think that you were saying you’re on that high end where, uh, it’s not the high frequency, but it’s essentially on the higher end of the spectrum where it’s high stress that you’re then used to.
[00:12:58] Stuart Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:59] Scott Pressimone: And there’s people on the very low end of the spectrum that are more like, maybe they’re depressed, right?
[00:13:03] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. And they don’t have that high frequency of going from highs to lows. Maybe they’re staying within that. Uh, wavelength almost. And I’m curious if you can explain that a little bit more. ’cause I didn’t do a great job explaining it, but where were you on that spectrum and then, you know, how is that different than some other individuals?
[00:13:20] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, so that part to the presentation was something I re researched and added it to the whole workshop, which we took you through. Basically we have a bandwidth, we have a window of tolerance, how much stress we can handle in a day. Um, and everyone’s different. People talk about de-stressing and, you know, stress is all bad, but we need both sides.
[00:13:42] Stuart Wilson: So stress, you can think of it as sympathetic, sympathetic, uh, part of your nervous system, which is action, stress, whatever you wanna call it. And then the parasympathetic side is the relaxing, the downregulation. A healthy person should be able to move between the two. So when you wake up in the morning, you’re in a a relaxed state. Parasympathetic state.
[00:14:05] Stuart Wilson: But if you’ve gotta get up and get your kids, you don’t wanna stay in a, you wanna get your kids ready for school, you don’t wanna stay in a parasympathetic state. You wanna move into action. So our nervous system moves towards stress, but then we need the ability to move back. What a lot of entrepreneurs, business people like you meet, come across.
[00:14:24] Stuart Wilson: They are constantly in this sympathetic dominant state. So they’re always in an action state, which does allow us to achieve a lot. We can have goals, you know, we can do a lot of things, but if you stay up there too long, so if you stay in the sympathetic dominant state, what happens? You lose the ability to then come back down into the parasympathetic state.
[00:14:46] Stuart Wilson: What that means in practical terms is you end up working, pushing yourself, achieving a lot. But if you stay there in neurosciences talks about this and how the brain works, then you never shift downregulate into a parasympathetic state. And that state is when we feel the joys of our labor. You know, so you can push, you can push, you can push, but then you lose sort of track what you’re doing it for, you know?
[00:15:13] Stuart Wilson: So this is why it’s talked a lot about in Silicon Valley and tech industries, because they’ve figured that out. You know, you need to be able to shift space and actually doing, so there’s a lot of neuroscience talk now that stepping back from this, uh, drive and trying to achieve things and goals actually gives you a wider perspective of your problems or your issues or the things you wanna achieve.
[00:15:38] Stuart Wilson: And then when you go back into that state, you’re more aligned with what you truly want to wanna do. So that understanding of this shift between stress or sympathetic. And then coming down into parasympathetic state, a healthy nervous system is being able to, to on demand shift in them states. So I know you are, you’ve got a, a little kid, maybe not you, but I know many other people, uh, when they’re with a kid, they’re always thinking about work when they’re with the family, thinking about work.
[00:16:07] Stuart Wilson: And when they’re working, they’re working hard, but they think they wish do with the, the child or the family. We wanna be able to do that on demand. And what really appealed to me with the breath work is it’s trainable. We can train our nervous system to do that. And who doesn’t want to be able to work hard and achieve a lot, but also without sacrificing, uh, things are working hard, uh, for like family and friends and just general health.
[00:16:35] Stuart Wilson: Mm. That made sense?
[00:16:36] Scott Pressimone: Yeah, it does. It does. I, and I’ll, again, I’ll reinforce that what you described as. Always being on. Yeah. That’s definitely what I fell into. Yeah. And I have a couple young children and I try to be very present for them when I’m with them. But to your point, which you just described, I am always on and there’s this feeling of never slow down.
[00:16:55] Scott Pressimone: Right. You make some momentum, you want to keep going. Yeah. And there’s never a pause.
[00:16:59] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:16:59] Scott Pressimone: And I realize that when it comes to emotion, uh, you know, I’m not very emotional. It’s what’s the next thing I have to do? What’s the next thing? And it, it’s like you’re on this flywheel, just like, you know, in entrepreneurship, you almost wanna get outta the, um, the being a cog in a machine.
[00:17:12] Scott Pressimone: So you say, I’m gonna do my own thing. But then you create your own machine and then you’re always working on the next iteration of that machine. And so there’s just not an off button, there’s not a pause, there’s not a get perspective.
[00:17:22] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Scott Pressimone: And I, I think some people might, to your point, everyone’s different and some people might be able to take a nice holiday.
[00:17:27] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:17:28] Scott Pressimone: But yeah, even when I take holidays, every time that I’m on holiday, I’m thinking about, oh my gosh, I need to integrate that into my business. Or Oh my gosh, I need to talk to someone about that. Yeah. And, and, but when I actually did the breath work. That was the first, I had to have been years that I felt the emotionally that I felt.
[00:17:46] Scott Pressimone: Um, I, it was mind blowing to me that that’s something that you can do yourself.
[00:17:52] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:17:53] Scott Pressimone: Right. It’s something to your point, that it’s in your control. You don’t need to take a drug.
[00:17:57] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:17:57] Scott Pressimone: You don’t need to take something from the outside. I’ve always been against the whole, do I need a cigarette to survive? Do I need a, you know, a vape?
[00:18:03] Scott Pressimone: Do I need a, a pill? Mm-hmm. I’ve always disliked that because you’re now dependent on something, but the idea that you can do something in your own home yourself without an expense.
[00:18:14] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:18:15] Scott Pressimone: It’s incredible.
[00:18:15] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:18:16] Scott Pressimone: Right.
[00:18:16] Stuart Wilson: Exactly. And, uh, I, I, and that’s what hooked me, uh, in terms of a business is probably the worst type of business because we’re training people who don’t need to ever come back to us again.
[00:18:28] Stuart Wilson: Um, which I think that’s great. And now I could talk later about what things we do offer, which, uh, people rejoin and stuff, but that was the whole idea. Can I teach something that people can take away as a tool? What’s gonna enhance their life? Not only enhance their own life, but people around them. So what you are talking about having goals and achievements and you’re always on, we know from neurosciences has been talked a lot about, we have regions of our brains or more specifically networks, and one of them is called the default mode network.
[00:19:03] Stuart Wilson: The default mode. Have you ever heard of this? I haven’t. So the default mode network is we need it, it becomes more active and we’re daydreaming, or more specifically, it becomes more active when we’re planning. Or we are. Another term used is running simulations of what life is or what the future’s gonna be and what it means to you.
[00:19:25] Stuart Wilson: Self-referencing and things like that. It’s great for business because when you’ve got time, you might just sit down or you’re on in a taxi or on the train or whatever, and you sit back and you start thinking, okay, I’m gonna have this meeting. I’ve got this idea, then I’m gonna get back to the office and do this.
[00:19:40] Stuart Wilson: So you run in simulations of life. That really helps to achieve goals, but it’s not living life. It’s running simulations of life. And then what happens? You can get stuck there. So that’s how people achieve a lot because networks of the brain are always on studies show that people who meditate, uh, or do other types of modalities, what actually happens is the default mode network quietens, and that’s when they feel the joys of all the hard work with breath work.
[00:20:12] Stuart Wilson: It’s a, it’s another modality, which is very fast acting, which allows people to shift state quickly. However, some people can do that through meditation. My, my wife can, you know, she, you know, was, she’s Buddhist and she can meditate for hours, no problem. But a lot of people can’t. And a lot of different types of people can’t, especially in the business industry, business world, entrepreneurship, people are constantly on default networks on.
[00:20:42] Stuart Wilson: So then you lose connection to actually here now and the whole reason they’re doing it. And also one of the things I learned from researching and doing all these qualifications was what’s really interesting is empathy for others is determined by your depth of feeling. So in other words, if you are always in this default mode networking, you are always running simulations and then effectively use con lose connection to your own emotional state.
[00:21:12] Stuart Wilson: You can have empathy for others, or you have less empathy for others because you are not allowing yourself to feel this depth of, um, emotions. Does that make sense? I mean, there’s some wild studies were the, they were looking at, uh, women who had Botox. And what they did from the studies was discover that when you have Botox, especially around the eye region, because that person can’t make his micro muscle.
[00:21:40] Stuart Wilson: Movements to mirror someone else’s emotions. They have less empathy.
[00:21:46] Scott Pressimone: That reminds me a lot of how I’ve heard. If you want to be happy, you have to smile. Yeah. Because there’s that level of, it’s something comes from that, right? Your body feels it, and you are now more likely to stay happy. It’s, it’s really hard to stay angry if you forced yourself to smile.
[00:21:59] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. And so when you’re mentioning these, these micro eye movements, it sounds similar to that.
[00:22:03] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. I mean, Tony Robbins talks about this all the time. He’s, you know, he talks about how in his talks, a depressed person comes over and they slouch in and they’re like, Tony, I’m so depressed. And the first thing he tells him is to stand up straight, shows his back, look up and smile.
[00:22:19] Stuart Wilson: And then do you feel more or less depressed? ’cause your physical body will feed back into your nervous system and determine your emotional state. So all these things, uh, are tools and ways we can change our state into what we wanna, what, how we wanna be. But the first thing is knowing. What state you’re in.
[00:22:40] Stuart Wilson: And some people are in this sympathetic dominant state too long that they even don’t know the stressed. So chronic stress. And we know from studies that that can lead to, uh, physical, uh, ailments and health issues. That’s where the ice bath comes in. ’cause the ice bath really makes, you know what stress is.
[00:23:02] Stuart Wilson: And then we learn how to then control our response through the training that we do in the workshop, which we’ve already been to.
[00:23:08] Scott Pressimone: So that definitely brings me to the business ’cause I wanna learn more about how you made the transition. ’cause based on what you share, you experienced this and then you wanted to make sure others could experience what you experienced and that turned into a business.
[00:23:21] Scott Pressimone: But you also alluded to the fact that it’s not the best business when it comes to profit because it’s this level of, uh, you’re teaching people tools that they can use and they can use some of them, uh, theirselves and they don’t need to come to you every time. And I wanna reinforce that because the person who introduced us, his name is Robin.
[00:23:39] Scott Pressimone: And Robin, uh, came here in the early days. Is that right?
[00:23:43] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. Came to our, uh, studio, I think about six or seven years ago,
[00:23:48] Scott Pressimone: right?
[00:23:48] Stuart Wilson: At least six.
[00:23:49] Scott Pressimone: So, so years ago. And he came here, but my understanding is he doesn’t come every weekend. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, and he’s mentioned to me before, you know, that he has some of these tools and he will do this at home.
[00:24:02] Scott Pressimone: When I asked him, are you, do you have an ice bath? How often do you come? Um, you know, he comes still. ’cause of course he gets tons of value from it. But he does some of this at home and I think he even does something we can talk about more, which is maybe, um, putting, well, it’s the breath work, but it’s also, uh, just putting your hands in, in a, in a tub of ice.
[00:24:18] Scott Pressimone: Right. Um, or whatever you have at home. And he leverages that. So I, I think it just reinforces that you’re not trying to get people hooked on your business in a way that maybe some might. Yeah. Um, it sounds a little bit more like you want to teach them the tools and if they choose to come back and they choose to get the value out of being here in person, they can do that, but they have the option.
[00:24:37] Stuart Wilson: Yes, exactly. So, uh, just touching on that, so we have the, the training where people can come and they can go away. And they have these tools that they can use themselves, right? Or even if they go to other places which have ice baths, at least they know how to do it safely and effectively. Uh, so that’s, we know there’s, uh, clients, customers like that, and I like that.
[00:25:01] Stuart Wilson: They’ve got some value from us. What we offer, uh, additionally where people return is other breathing modalities, other breath work modalities. So you were talking about the Wim Hof Method there, but also people come back for the aspect of the community. So yes, you can do it at own, it’s great, it’s great, uh, to maintain that practice.
[00:25:24] Stuart Wilson: But then the other side is the community aspect where people come along and they’re doing different environment. They’re around people who know the training and then they get sort of a different feeling from it. There’s a, there’s a different effect from group sessions as opposed on your own. Exactly.
[00:25:38] Stuart Wilson: The same as, um, a yoga class. There’s a difference between practicing yoga in your living room as opposed to going to a, a yoga class. You know, we have a teacher and other participants. So it’s not unusual such, you know, there’s apps where you can learn yoga at home, but still people still go to classes.
[00:25:56] Stuart Wilson: So that, that’s the sort of the business model if you like. Um, but the reason, um, I wanted to turn this in a business, there was actually no plan originally. I just wanted to help people. And it’s still the underpinning of everything we do. We never add something, we never do things if I believe or feel that it’s not gonna help people.
[00:26:17] Stuart Wilson: So when we first launched these in-person classes was in Kam’s, yoga studio. People really resonated with it and kept on coming back. Then we went through all the COVID thing, opening, closing, opening, closing. And during that period, uh, Kam had already been doing the Wim Hof breathing technique, which I taught her.
[00:26:39] Stuart Wilson: I’m already an instructor at this point, of course. And during COVID, she started feeling depressed and afraid. And you’ve met Kam, she’s bubbly and smiley, like most high people are anyway. And she was really struggling. So I said to her, why do you not try the ice bath side of things? We know how this can help mentally, uh, uh, the neurochemistry, what’s going on.
[00:27:02] Stuart Wilson: And she did so. To be honest with you, I thought she was gonna get out and scream and gimme a slap, but she used to shiver watching me doing ice baths. I’ve done ice baths every day for many, many years. Thousands of ice baths. But Kam started doing it regular and she did it every day, 100 days in a row, and I was taking photographs and videos of her doing it and putting on social media.
[00:27:25] Stuart Wilson: That alone got 60, 70 people booked for when we next opened, plus many, many followers. If you see me getting an nice bath, it doesn’t look impressive. It looks like I should be living in the islands of Scotland anyway, you know, in a coal country. But seeing the Thai person that actually started getting a lot of Thai people interested, and I know we’re gonna talk about this cross culture stuff, and then when we did reopen and my other things I had going on financially ended ’cause of COVID, then we sort of made the commitment to, you know, do this properly as a business together.
[00:28:01] Scott Pressimone: What’s interesting about it to me too is the environment you do it in, because I have seen, you know, I’m not saying it’s bad, but there are hotels that might offer it. There’s other businesses that might tack it on as almost an extra, but. Again, it seems more central because if I look at this environment, right, we have some ice baths behind us.
[00:28:20] Scott Pressimone: We have, um, you know, sauna, we have these options here, but it’s in a hole. Yeah. Right. And having it in a house where you can sit down on a couch where you can hang out, it just seems very homey as opposed to this, uh, like I said, almost a spreadsheet oriented business. It’s like, how can we churn people through?
[00:28:37] Scott Pressimone: I’ll give another comparison. Um, my kids go to TaeKwonDo and I know some TaeKwonDo studios or yoga studios or whatever, and they may be, they kind of want to optimize for the, for the space and they’ll say, let’s get this crew in. Let’s get ’em out. Let’s get to the next one. That’s not at all this environment.
[00:28:52] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t see people waiting in line saying, oh yeah, you know, we need to use this space. You, you seem to kind of make it six hour events or an evening event. It, it seems way more like a community. And it sounds like that was purposeful.
[00:29:05] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, that a hundred percent is purposeful. And, um, I understand businesses need, uh, to get the numbers in.
[00:29:11] Stuart Wilson: I completely understand that, but. The approach we took, it’s, it is an experience, but it’s also training as well. So that’s why we got that elongated type, um, class where we, as you know, we put food on, you know, help yourself with the buffet style stuff, drinks it can communi, you know, chat and communicate with each other.
[00:29:32] Stuart Wilson: The, feel free to hang around later, but six hours sounds long as you know. We mix it up between a chunk of theory followed by practice, theory practice, so it’s not six hours of me talking even though I could do that. So we’re talking about the Wim Hof Method workshops now. Just also be a word that people are scared as well.
[00:29:52] Stuart Wilson: You have a lot of people who know they’re gonna be doing ice baths, so they’re very scared. Uh, very nervous. So you come in, you come and sit down in the classroom area, I guess, again, very homely. Then we introduce people, people introduce themselves. It helps to get some understanding of the level and why they’re here.
[00:30:11] Stuart Wilson: And also we’ve gotta be aware as well. That customers come. Clients come from, someone’s been given, uh, the ticket for a birthday present. They listen to a podcast and they wanna know what it’s about. Or some people have health issues that they wanna address. So everyone has to fill out a health questionnaire.
[00:30:32] Stuart Wilson: Very important for breath work. Very important for any cold exposure. That’s one of the things we, we have to do and should be done whenever anyone’s doing any cold exposure. So everyone does that. So we know everyone can do it. Then we take ’em through basic intro, and then we get them to feel the cold exposure for the first time.
[00:30:52] Stuart Wilson: And we do that by putting the hands in the ice that first step. I can see in 90% of people’s eyes that they regret booking the workshop. ’cause it’s per, it’s purposely difficult and it gives people some, uh, some understanding of the intensity and things that can go on. Then they come and sit back down a bit more theory, some bit more practice.
[00:31:16] Stuart Wilson: And then we give them some simple tools and we teach them why they work. And that’s when we talk about the stress levels and the, you know, the sine wave you mentioned. Then they come and do it again, and then the second time they put their hands in the ice. Nearly everyone does it the first time. Uh, did you, did you do?
[00:31:34] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think I did all right the first time. Again, I had had some history with, with cold water, and so I was kind of like, oh, I can do this. But I’ll have to admit I had that, uh, that feeling of, oh, I’m not gonna be the first one to get my hands outta the water. Right. I, and it, but it was hard.
[00:31:49] Scott Pressimone: And to that point, even someone who had done it before, I still felt very cold. And I was like, uh, let me, how hold, how long can I hold him in here? Who’s, who’s gonna take him out first? I was doing that the first time, but to your point, after teaching, you taught more of the theory and I came back to it. Um, it was.
[00:32:04] Scott Pressimone: May any different.
[00:32:05] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. And that’s not even, uh, teaching you how to control your breathing and stuff on the breathwork side of things. So after that, we have a break, so everyone’s eating and chatting and that normally like cracks open this close sort of, um, a behavior from everyone. Now they sat talking.
[00:32:23] Stuart Wilson: That’s great. Then we come back and then we go into the theory and the science of the breathing exercises, what he’s actually doing. And then everyone comes and lies down and we take him through a breath work session. We guide people, first of all, making sure everyone’s safe, understands what’s going on, types of sensations and things they can have in their body and their mind.
[00:32:42] Stuart Wilson: All this, everyone’s safe, you know, using all our musical equipment to get this environment feel. And most people, I would say more than the other way around, people come for the ice bath, but then the experience of breathwork side of it, and that’s what blows them away. Same experience. What I had when I got into this, what what’s good to understand is the cold exposure.
[00:33:10] Stuart Wilson: The ice bath is a tool, uh, used in a way for the benefits. What we know through the Wim Hof, the breath work is a tool. So our business has never been ice baths. We’ve never done an ice bath workshop. The cold is part of, uh, the methodology, right? Uh, then we all go outside and we, you know, did a big ice bath outside.
[00:33:32] Stuart Wilson: We put a thousand, we use 2000 kilograms of ice. We never reuse ice. Everything’s fresh for that workshop. Uh, then we’ve got a hot tub and we’ve got a sauna and go, go out there and people, uh, finish off doing the ice and then they enjoy the sauna and the hot. Um, so that’s a structure of it. Um, and then when we get returning, uh, customers or clients, seems, it seems weird me even saying clients, ’cause most of ’em are turned into friends now.
[00:33:59] Stuart Wilson: You know, the people who come regular, when they come again, they come to what we call a community sessions where there’s no theory. ’cause everyone knows what to do, and then we go straight into the breath work and the cold exposure. So that’s the Wim Hof Method of things plus the community sessions.
[00:34:14] Scott Pressimone: Yeah, I, and again, I have to admit, my, my exposure to this was.
[00:34:20] Scott Pressimone: From the perspective of I’ve done ice baths before, I want to know how I, why I would pay money to come. Well, number one, why I would spend six hours. Yeah. And then number two, why I would pay money for it, because I can get it for X number of bot. And I’m not the only one because I’ve talked to some friends that I was trying to encourage.
[00:34:38] Scott Pressimone: And I think that it’s really hard to understand it until you’ve experienced it. Yeah. Because I think it’s very easy to say, whoa, okay, that costs this much. Right. And then, oh. Let me search around for ice bath, Bangkok or something. And then you say, oh, they’re 300 bought for the ice bath and, and you’re, it.
[00:34:54] Scott Pressimone: It’s apples and oranges. Like, it’s just so drastically different. But I’m curious, is that a common thing that you’ve heard where people are looking at that price and price shopping and basically saying, wait, you’re more expensive than them. You might just have these big margins and you’re just, you know, woo woo.
[00:35:08] Scott Pressimone: Or just trying to inflate rates, not having any understanding what the workshop is all about.
[00:35:12] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And some people say, oh, there’s, ’cause when we started doing this in 2018, 2019, no, there was nowhere in Thailand, you could do ice baths workshops. The majority of these places you see popping up, the majority of them have come to us and then, you know, they’ve then gone on to make their own ice bath place, which is great.
[00:35:34] Stuart Wilson: I actually, I don’t see ’em as competition at all because we’ve never, ever done ice bath only workshops. We’ve never done that. Uh, that’s not our thing. The, there’s nothing inherently special about a container with icing. It’s the whole mythology, the whole reasoning behind and, and what it can do for the body and mind.
[00:35:56] Stuart Wilson: What I do like about people being able to do ice baths easier because it things open up closer to where they live always cheaper, is because it gives the pe uh, people the first step or the first insight into cold exposure. What we found as more and more of these places pop up and more and more people do it, a lot of them end up coming to us anyway ’cause they wanna learn more and that’s great.
[00:36:22] Stuart Wilson: I like that. And then they can go away and continue the practice. And what they’re gonna know when they do come, if they’re already practicing doing ice bath, they’re gonna know the safety and the things to be aware of. So. Yeah. Like I said, most people think even not just us, about the Wim Hof Method as a whole, people think it’s all about the ice bath, the cold exposure, but it’s not.
[00:36:44] Stuart Wilson: That’s really just like a side thing to the main training. Now, to your point about marketing and getting information out there, we purposely do not outline everything that goes on in the workshop. There’s a few reasons about the buying effect. The pricing guidelines are set by the Wim Hof Method, so we have to charge a certain amount.
[00:37:09] Stuart Wilson: So we add value by extending the workshop, deeper, understanding food and drink, things like that. So we’re trying to add value, not cut into what we should be pricing things at. So that’s the main one. But when people come and they see how much we teach people and what’s involved, and the other aspects, everyone leaves understanding that, oh, the ice bath is not the main thing, you know, to simplify it.
[00:37:34] Stuart Wilson: The breath work, the ice bath, the mindset training. These are all ways to allow us to control our nervous system, control our, our mind. So that’s the whole goal of the Wim Hof Method, and that’s why the training is so, uh. So long also in depth.
[00:37:51] Scott Pressimone: You say long again, and it’s all relative. I mean, yes, it does take time.
[00:37:55] Scott Pressimone: Yes, you do have to say, do I have these six hours to do this session? But it went by very quickly for me.
[00:38:00] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, I
[00:38:01] Scott Pressimone: can definitely say, uh, and I like too that you’re mentioning that everyone’s at different levels, and I noticed too that it’s different people, some of which might be traveling here, traveling to Bangkok, others like business owners, um, you know, like myself, but also some of my friends that have come through here.
[00:38:15] Scott Pressimone: Right?
[00:38:15] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:38:16] Scott Pressimone: And, uh, it just seems. Like different levels, different motivations. But I love, like you just said, the rationale behind why you set things up. Because you have to get all those people eased into it, it sounds like, because they might not know quite what they’re getting.
[00:38:30] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. And and also because, um, the Wim Hof Method and studies showing about the benefits health wise, there’s a lot of people that come to us who have health conditions who are looking for the Wim Hof Method to improve their health or deal with some symptoms of a disease or disorder.
[00:38:48] Stuart Wilson: We’ve even had doctors, entire hospitals send, uh, patients to us. So if you think about our workshop, which is open for people, you can have a mix. You can have people here on holiday. You’re gonna have people who’ve just heard about it the day before. Then you’ve got people here who are hoping it can give them some, uh, help in helping with some health condition. So we’ve gotta, so that’s why we structure the workshop step by step, make sure everyone’s on the same wavelength. And also what I’ve seen personally, myself and other places around the world, is there’s something that goes on about, there’s something that happens when people around ice baths, they tend to go crazy.
[00:39:30] Stuart Wilson: You know, they’re like throwing at ice each other. They’re doing dangerous stuff. They’re, you know, messing around. And our model, our, the business and where we operate, we avoid that. So, uh, we avoid spectacle, so we’re not interested in that. Doesn’t mean it’s not a great time, especially the community sessions.
[00:39:48] Stuart Wilson: Uh, but that’s, you know, we have, um, safety rules first, safety for the participant more than anything. And the whole training is how can we maximize the health benefits or minimize or completely remove any risks and then give them the knowledge. So then if they never come back and they go somewhere else or they do it at home, they know how to do it safely.
[00:40:11] Scott Pressimone: Right. No, that makes perfect sense. I, again, I’ll, I’ll reinforce that. When I was here, everyone was very well behaved because they were eased into it. Whereas I can imagine if you’re just, you’re on holiday or something and you’re like, oh, that place has an ice bath. You know, you’re gonna have people trying to have competitions, how long they can stay in, you’re gonna have them kind of doing all that words.
[00:40:28] Scott Pressimone: This is, I wouldn’t call it more serious it, because it’s not like it was boring and serious, but it’s, uh, there’s a method to it. It’s methodical, it’s structured. Um, and as to your point, I understand safety Yeah. Is, is a key to all that. Yeah. Speaking of which, uh, dunking headed into water. Okay. Do you, yeah.
[00:40:45] Scott Pressimone: What’s your feeling on this?
[00:40:46] Stuart Wilson: Yes. So, um, so talking about ice baths popping up and hotels and people doing at home, or little businesses popping home, I think it’s great. It gives more people awareness of this type of tool that’s out there for health benefits. I just hope that all these places are doing it safely, um, and know what they’re doing.
[00:41:10] Stuart Wilson: What I found is that people are seeing podcasts, uh, listening to podcasts, are seeing pulse on social media, and then thinking they know what they’re doing and then regurgitating that incorrect information and appearing as some sort of knowledgeable, uh, facilitator around this. I have seen some very dangerous stuff going on, and that does worry me.
[00:41:30] Stuart Wilson: So when we do an ice bath called exposure, we’re looking for health benefits. So again, we wanna maximize the health benefits and remove all risks. Dunking the head, while your body’s in the ice bath and holding your breath one doesn’t give any additional benefits. It’s just pure risk. So there are studies showing that holding breath under, uh, very cold water, you can get something called the autonomic nervous system clash, which can give you heart arrhythmias or stop your heart.
[00:41:59] Stuart Wilson: And there’s some horror stories around the world where people have. Uh, got injuries or even passed away from this type of stuff. Um, duration in the ice bath as well. Very, we get this often people say, oh, I do this long at an ice bath and I do this, and they compete with each other. Again, if people are safe, I, I tend not to dis that, you know, especially these sort of community type places where it’s more of a spectacle as long as people safe, you know, that’s the main point.
[00:42:31] Stuart Wilson: However, when we look at the studies, you don’t need longer in the ice bath. It’s actually the initial cold shock, which then triggers the benefits and gives all the health benefits people talk about. So duration going in longer is sort of pointless, plus the longer you stay in the ice, the risks start to increase.
[00:42:51] Stuart Wilson: So what we do in our training, we explain that. So we’ve had people come to us, say, oh, I do 5, 10, 15 minutes at home. Then they come to us learn, um, the science behind it and what’s proven. Then they go back home and practice and they do it correctly. I think that’s great. However, we do train people to go longer, but that’s for specific things.
[00:43:11] Stuart Wilson: That’s not for everyday health and wellness. That’s for specific goals. So yeah, dunking the head under the ice. I mean, there’s only one benefit. I think it looks cool on Instagram or something. Don’t do that. If we’re looking for maximum health benefits, minimizing the risks, you shouldn’t be doing that.
[00:43:30] Scott Pressimone: What about having a spotter and having other people? ’cause you mentioned, you know, as long as there’s a community around it, that could be positive as long as people are being safe. Yeah. But then do you have any feeling, ’cause I think you’d mentioned that when you do your ice baths, you have Kam around or vice versa.
[00:43:43] Scott Pressimone: Is that correct?
[00:43:44] Stuart Wilson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The um, so the idea of having someone, uh, keeping an eye on you is because things can happen to someone’s body, someone’s mind, even if they’ve done hundreds of ice baths already and never had a problem. Sometimes people, when they get the cold shock in the body, the limbs, the body doesn’t operate correctly when the mind wants their arms to move.
[00:44:07] Stuart Wilson: So I’ve seen it myself in other places and a couple of times here, whereas someone’s in the. When it’s finished and it’s time to get out, they can’t physically move. So we always advise have someone near you to keep you safe. However, I, I do understand that’s a bit difficult, you know, like if you’re doing it at, at home.
[00:44:25] Stuart Wilson: So whatever way you can, uh, minimize the risks and make sure that if something does go wrong, you’re gonna be safe. That also highlight problems with some businesses where they have ice baths in a private room. And they don’t have people checking on them. If you have a client going in who’s maybe thinking about competing, they don’t know exactly what to do.
[00:44:48] Stuart Wilson: They’re trying to, they think, uh, the length of the ice bath is important, then you run the risk of someone injuring themselves in these private enclosed spaces. So in our workshops, in the community sessions, we’re always here keeping an eye on people. Um, so again, it just comes back down to safety and thinking about things, uh, if, if something did go wrong.
[00:45:09] Scott Pressimone: Mm-hmm. You know, I do wanna talk a little bit about the other companies that offer this sort of thing, because to your point, some of them can be good. Mm-hmm. Right. Some of them can be risky, right. But it’s each different things and you’re not competing with some of these other businesses that are just pitching ice bath or cold water immersion.
[00:45:25] Scott Pressimone: ’cause that’s not what you do. However, um, one thing that I found pretty unique about the session that I attended here was the fact that it’s you and Kam working together. Right and the like, my experience of that, and I’ve shared this with other people and they said the same thing, is that having you lead the session and having Kam in the session as well was something I think that other companies probably can’t replicate because it was very interesting how you all worked together.
[00:45:54] Scott Pressimone: And I wanna dig deeper into that later on about how you were able to run a business with your wife. But, uh, but anyway, I just wanted to share that. And I’m curious if you’ve gotten feedback where having your energy and her energy together, right? It was kinda like the feminine and the mask and it was like you all leading a workshop together was like.
[00:46:10] Scott Pressimone: Just very unique. Very unique. Right? Because she was walking around like helping with the, the rhythm. Um, and, and you were kind of guiding it from the front of the room, but I don’t know, I’m curious, have you heard positive feedback about
[00:46:24] Stuart Wilson: it before? Yeah, yeah. Um, it works really good during breathwork sessions as well, having this different, uh, this tone and what I’m doing and what Kam’s doing.
[00:46:33] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, we have a lot of comments with that. But it also, even just a very practical point, you’re gonna be coming to a space where you’re gonna be getting in your swimwear.
[00:46:42] Scott Pressimone: Mm.
[00:46:42] Stuart Wilson: So having a man and a woman, uh, there with a mixed group, you know, it’s gonna help the females feel comfortable in a group in the bikini and vice versa.
[00:46:53] Stuart Wilson: So it, it works well for that. And not only, I think it works great and we have comments all the time about our workshop having myself and Kam, but Kam is. And we, you know, Thai. A great, um, understanding of English. So in an English workshop, which we alternate between Thai and English, we tweak, we get Thai people joining.
[00:47:16] Stuart Wilson: So Kam’s always there to translate. She’s also there to translate my northern English into normal English. Um, but that sort of, um, one, it makes people feel safe and you get in that cultural mix of understanding and what other people are, you know, thinking about or worried about. So yeah, we have that common quite a lot.
[00:47:37] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. So that, again, it’s something I think would be difficult to replicate, but there’s also copycats, right? And intellectual property is something that’s very interesting here. Um, you know, I, I think everyone has their own way of doing something and who knows? Some people might like it here, some people might like it somewhere else.
[00:47:53] Scott Pressimone: But what I think is a line that’s really tough to cross is when people copy Yeah. What you’re providing. And I’m wondering if you’ve experienced that where individuals were coming here then trying to essentially hack their way to the top and saying, I’m gonna copy what they’re doing here, copy paste over there.
[00:48:11] Scott Pressimone: But they might not have the foundation. Has that happened to you before?
[00:48:13] Stuart Wilson: Oh yeah. But um, I think it’s important to say about copycats and, you know, there’s other businesses will offer what we do. Well, there is no other business in Thailand that offer what we do. So we’re the only certified Wim Hof Method instructors.
[00:48:26] Stuart Wilson: And that’s just one modality. And like I said, we’ve never offered an ice bath facilitator. We’re not interested in that. Um, other people, other companies are set up, you know, cold exposure places and there’s some bigger companies setting up now we’ve got branches in different countries. Um. You know, and the term ice bath is very popular most of the time it’s a cold plunge, but they use the ice bath for the marketing side of things.
[00:48:52] Stuart Wilson: These places popping up, doing it again, like I said previously, I think it’s great ’cause it allows more people to become aware and that, that, that lower price point of, of doing it’s again, opens it up. The differences really, you know, a lot of places are doing it. Not very hygienic, they’re just recycling.
[00:49:11] Stuart Wilson: They just keep topping up the ice. Again, it’s not hygienic. Um, they’re also allowing things to be done a bit uncontrolled or dangerous practices. But if, if. Places are safe and hygienic. as well. I think it’s amazing. You know, that’s just one aspect of the things we teach. The more things that can come out, the more exposure about the benefits of cold exposure and sauna, I think that’s a net positive.
[00:49:40] Stuart Wilson: Talking about, um, intellectual property and copying, oh my God. The, some of the stuff we’ve experienced and, uh, gone through over the years, it’s mind blowing early on. I’d say about, I think it was about 2020, we even had someone, um, let’s say saying negative things about us on social media platforms and, you know, lies and things like that.
[00:50:05] Stuart Wilson: That was an issue and there’s laws in Thailand about that. So we had that problem. We’ve also had people straight up recording me and I saw a Instagram post. This is, um, about a year ago I saw an Instagram reel and it had me speaking in the background. I thought, that’s interesting. I’ve never been there.
[00:50:26] Stuart Wilson: So they were just play my recording. I’ve also had five star hotels, resorts and retreats using our image, using our photographs here to promote their new offerings. It just seems to be pretty rife in Thailand now. And the intellectual property thing, it’s the Wim Hof Method. Very strict with their branding.
[00:50:47] Stuart Wilson: one for safety,that anyone that uses it, they know what they’re doing. There’s a lot of people, um, infringing on the Wim Hof Method, trademarks and copyright stuff. Luckily we don’t have to deal with that because the Wim Hof Method company deal with that and they’ve got global trademark and copyright rules, you know, for certain terms and names.
[00:51:12] Stuart Wilson: But I’m surprised how many people do it and how many people do it willingly. And I’m also surprised as well that when people do learn new things from us and then they start talking about it, they never really give us a little bit of love back. They never tell us that they learned from us, which I’m not sure what that’s about because, um.
[00:51:36] Stuart Wilson: Where I come from and the way I’ve done business all my life, I think that’s a positive. If I’ve learned something from you, Scott, and that changed, uh, give benefit or opened up new doorways, I would give you credit. I, we have clients who have turned into friends here who just chatting to ’em have given me insights into business or an NLP stuff or, uh, some other training, and I’ve credited them.
[00:52:01] Stuart Wilson: I think that lacks a bit over here. I think, I’m or Asia, but this crediting each other from learning things. I think it’s a bit lacking. And here, if I was a business coming to Thailand, um, from overseas and setting up here, I would from the very start, make sure all the IP, trademarks and copyrights are in place because.
[00:52:23] Stuart Wilson: It will happen.
[00:52:24] Scott Pressimone: Yes. Yes, it definitely will. Uh, yeah. Uh, I’m sorry you had to go through all that because it is interesting that people, number one, they’re not crediting you, but number two, they just, they don’t even know that these companies might not even have that knowledge that you have. And as you said, it’s so important to have the foundational knowledge mm-hmm.
[00:52:39] Scott Pressimone: To actually go through the courses and be certified.
[00:52:41] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[00:52:42] Scott Pressimone: Right. Uh, it’s not just a matter of, uh, look, I took a workshop one time and now I, now I can do it myself, or now I can promote it Right. To, I I, I think people like to take those shortcuts a little too
[00:52:51] often.
[00:52:51] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. And the only, the, the, the thing what, uh, worries me more is things like ice bath called exposure and breath work do have, uh, inherent.
[00:53:02] Stuart Wilson: Potential dangers, especially the ice bath and always very popular. Uh, it can, it can, uh, it, it does have, um, risks also the breath work side of things as risks, you know, especially when people are doing so there’s loads of breath work modalities, there’s so many techniques out there. Some of them can be used for trauma release.
[00:53:25] Stuart Wilson: Now if you go to a one of these, uh, trauma release breath work sessions, and that starts mobilizing some deep traumas where you need an experienced trained therapist or trauma informed person, and it’s not in place that can cause problems. Um, so my concern is just health and safety for everyone. That’s what I would love.
[00:53:49] Stuart Wilson: That’s what I would like to see the standard being, uh, raised. And there are some hotels and resorts from retreats who’ve contacted us about helping them to raise the safety standards and understand things more. Um, so it’s not so much about, um, copying then affects our business. It’s more about copying and then putting customers and clients at risk.
[00:54:16] Stuart Wilson: That’s my concern more than ev anything. I think if more people, uh, get to feel and taste the benefits of breath work and cold exposure and the other things we do, I think that’s great. As long as it’s done safely and and correctly. There’s no difference from someone going to a, a private personal trainer and then learning.
[00:54:37] Stuart Wilson: Maybe some sort of training protocol, which is really good at enh. Enhancing squat strength, leaving that and then claiming you’ve c created it. It happens all the time in the fitness industry. Nutrition as well. It’s the same. So it doesn’t surprise me. Uh, it just surprises me. How often it’s done over here, do you know?
[00:54:58] Scott Pressimone: Yes.
[00:54:58] Stuart Wilson: Uh, and you’ve probably come across this, I know I’ve spoke to other business owners that have had this problem for a long time. Um, so yeah, that it is a concern, but from my point of view, it’s more about health and safety for clients.
[00:55:10] Scott Pressimone: Yes. Yes, yes. And a point that you made as well in the past off camera was about how breath work might seem innocent.
[00:55:17] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. It might seem, people might think relaxing when they hear breath work. Yeah. But is the Wim H method, is it a relaxing breathwork where you’re just gonna, you know, fall asleep or is it something different?
[00:55:26] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, so the Wim Hof Method, uh, we can talk about that. There’s other breathing techniques. So the Wim Hof breathing technique is also another stressor.
[00:55:34] Stuart Wilson: So it’s dosing our nervous system with a controlled amount of stress. That’s why you’ve gotta be careful using them types of breathing techniques, because it can trigger panic attacks and other deeper things. Um, so again, and I think the whole issue. Uh, what we’re trying to get people to understand, um, is the cost of ice is so cheap in Thailand, so the cost of entry into this market is very low.
[00:56:03] Stuart Wilson: Breathing is completely free. You know, so very low cost and I think that’s why it tends to get jumped on pretty quickly because there’s no cost. Like if you had to do an ice bath, um, and you had to buy a hundred thousand dollars machine, there’s gonna be less people copying, right? Or every time you taught breath work, you had to buy a really expensive system.
[00:56:27] Stuart Wilson: It’s gonna be less people, but be because there’s near zero cost of entry, that’s why it tends to get abused a little bit. Yeah. And I, I think, you know, in the stuff you come across all the businesses, the things that tend to have little cost to get in and replicate, people tend to do that,
[00:56:44] Scott Pressimone: right? Of course, of course.
[00:56:46] Scott Pressimone: The, let’s focus on the business side of
[00:56:47] Stuart Wilson: things,
[00:56:48] Scott Pressimone: right? Yeah. So, um. I’d love to hear. I, I know you already mentioned why you got into this. Uh, did you think that you’d start a business or did it just come naturally because you were so interested in this?
[00:56:58] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, you know, like when I’ve, I’ve done podcasts and interviews about business, I think, oh my God, like should I claim that I had some master plan all along?
[00:57:09] Stuart Wilson: And that’s why I do this. I had some sort of foundational underpinnings of what I wanted to do. First of all, it was to help people. And originally it was to help people like me, people who wouldn’t even look in these types of things ’cause they think it’s woo woo. Uh, that also, uh, that also, uh, determined I would teach it.
[00:57:28] Stuart Wilson: So it’s science-based, being able to reference it to things that are proven. However, he does open up things which are not proven yet by science. Uh, so there was never gonna, there was never original plan to be a full-time business. COVID helped to, uh, push me, push us to take the risk of turning it into a full-time business.
[00:57:49] Stuart Wilson: Um, yeah, and that’s where it sort of came from. So we do have some rules that have continued, uh, to direct how we, how we do things, how we grow, if we grow, what we offer. Uh, and that all comes from, um, I’m not sure if you talk much about when you, you know, talking about business, but we also only do things that we’re gonna enjoy doing.
[00:58:11] Stuart Wilson: So we do turn down a lot of things. I don’t wanna get into anything that I’m not gonna enjoy and we turn down, um, you know, uh, collaboration that seems very popular in Thailand and Asia. We’ve turned down so many of them. We’ve sort of been semi burnt by things like that in the past where it’s ended up being a negative for us.
[00:58:31] Stuart Wilson: Um, I know Tim Ferriss, you know, um, if you read his book when he was selling his brain supplement and he talked about he had. So many distributors and it, he applied the 80 20 rule and he really panicked cutting a big, a bit, one of his biggest distributors out. But that was given the most headaches and that allowed him to enjoy his business more.
[00:58:54] Stuart Wilson: But he did lose a lot of orders. But because he enjoyed it more, he could apply more energy to benefiting his clients already. So it’s sort that sort of idea is like, do I wanna do this? Yes, it could give bigger exposure. Yeah, it could, you know, some collaboration. Maybe we offer more workshops or whatever.
[00:59:14] Stuart Wilson: But then I look at it, I think, well, the client’s getting a worse, uh, experience and I don’t think I’m gonna enjoy it. So that’s what I tend to work on as well.
[00:59:26] Scott Pressimone: Now what is it like working with your wife?
[00:59:28] Stuart Wilson: It’s an absolute nightmare. No, I’m joking. Okay. So, uh, so, um. You know, Kam, you know, my backstory, uh, Kam is the complete opposite to me.
[00:59:39] Stuart Wilson: I, if I’m left to my own devices without doing things I teach, I’ll default into stress, air, this default mode network planning. And Kam is the completely opposite. Being Thai, being Buddhist, she knows how to bring me back into the present moment and really enjoy what we’re doing. So personally, that, that, that for just my life, not just working together has been, you know, has changed my life, you know, uh, for the better.
[01:00:03] Stuart Wilson: In terms of business, it’s great because Kam’s Thai, she needs to speak to, government, uh, legal stuff, accountants, she deals with all that. Um, but also gives me insights into marketing as well. Like things we, you know, that doesn’t quite resonate with Thai people or Asian in general. it’s not that we have designated roles, is that both of our background and experiences and our cultural differences, then we come together to, uh, the best way possible.
[01:00:38] Stuart Wilson: If I was trying to do it all myself with no Thai partner, no Thai wife, I think that, you know, could be quite challenging. I know that’s what one of the services you offer and other, you know, um, specialists. So yeah, for me it’s, everything’s a net positive.
[01:00:53] Scott Pressimone: Now with working together and building this business, it sounds like you want to build a business.
[01:00:59] Scott Pressimone: Keep building and growing a business that you want to be in, that you want to be part of. You don’t want it to grow to the point that you’re not enjoying it. So I definitely get that. What do you then think you might grow into, uh, if you want to grow? ’cause of course you’re very successful where you are, and I’m just kind of curious, where do you think this might go?
[01:01:15] Scott Pressimone: Or do you think it’s kind of keep it going and just kind of doing what you’re doing?
[01:01:19] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, I, I, um, my. Default mode network side of my brain that likes a plan and run simulations of what it could be. And, you know, things for the future. I tend to, I know we talked about this off camera, the old world of apps and online stuff.
[01:01:36] Stuart Wilson: I think the market is a bit saturated, but I do think there’s, um, a use of this, uh, a blend of the two. Were in-person training retreats, experiences with then some sort of app or online system, what can continue the training or keep people involved in a community type way, but part of, you know, the overall service offering.
[01:02:02] Stuart Wilson: Uh, so it’s definitely, uh, that’s in the pipeline. The, um, expansion on retreats and experiences like we did late last year. We went to Mongolia and we did a Wim Hof Method expedition there. We took a, a bunch of our well-trained clients, and we were in, you know, minus 29 to minus 35 degrees, and we did stuff there.
[01:02:24] Stuart Wilson: So there’s definitely more of that. There’s, we’ve also looked into things like satellite offices or satellite studios or people trained by us, and we, we were in the process of doing that already, but everything we do, uh, I know we talked about this earlier, so when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he cut away all these peripherals and, well, some of things were good, but he, he removed all the smaller products and services, and then he relaunched the iMac. And then from then on anything he added, anything they added had to be complimentary to the ecosystem and make sense. So we, uh, we don’t follow trends. That’s a big thing I’m into. I don’t follow trends. I take any business step very slowly because things can change quick and I wanna make sure that any additional service we add, any additional training, it’s done, uh, correctly.
[01:03:22] Stuart Wilson: Uh, and that also applies to any expansion things as well.
[01:03:25] Scott Pressimone: Yes. Now, you mentioned community a few times. Yeah. Uh, I can’t help but think that people have been behind their computers as you were in the past in finance. Right. We’re behind our computers, we’re slouching down. Right? We’re not feeling good about ourselves, and we’re, uh, or maybe we think we’re feeling good because we’re getting rewards, but then, you know, you have all the, the negative side effects that come along with that.
[01:03:46] Scott Pressimone: And I’m wondering, do you see that there might be this shift where people are now trying to get more in physical space, trying to find a local community, um, trying to go to more brick and mortars as opposed to up buying everything online. Do you think that that’s a shift? Do you or do you think it’s a pendulum is maybe going back in the other direction?
[01:04:03] Scott Pressimone: Because when I see the community of people here, it seems like this is something that people really enjoy.
[01:04:07] Stuart Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[01:04:08] Scott Pressimone: Being around people in, in meat space,
[01:04:10] Stuart Wilson: right? Yeah. Yeah. But
[01:04:11] Scott Pressimone: what is your thought on that?
[01:04:11] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think, um, I think so. There’s, you know, lots of articles and talk about this social wellness movement, you know, and, and, and anytime there’s a movement, it can go crazy.
[01:04:23] Stuart Wilson: Like I’ve seen. Uh, raves in saunas and, you know, like crazy stuff. I, I mean, I, I don’t even, um, I don’t even talk negative about these things because if someone, if people find benefit from that and it improves a life, great. You know, it’s not, it’s not the type of thing I want to get into. Uh, but one of the reasons we structured our services and what we offer, uh, being an expat and knowing a lot of expats, you know, I’ve got some friends here who’ve been here 30 plus years.
[01:04:54] Stuart Wilson: I came here when I was 27 with a friend who used to live here. So I met expats who were, uh, who were living here then. And what I discovered in speaking to people, if you are an expat, especially a guy and you wanna meet people or the expats and you’re not into going the gym, I mean, that’s a great place to meet people.
[01:05:14] Stuart Wilson: Or Muay Thai or martial arts, whatever. If you’re not into that, one of the only places you can meet fellow expats. In the bar drinking, you know, that’s not good. Right. You know, we need some other way, uh, to, you know, build a community. So, or it could be part of a community. And that’s where, you know, um, the British Chamber of Commerce and, uh, the British Club and things like that are really good.
[01:05:37] Stuart Wilson: So, one of the rea, one of the things I wanted to do is, and then that comes to this space as well, being more like a home. I wanted it to be a place you could come for hours where it getting healthy, makes you feel good. You can make new friends or build a community. And that’s, that is, I guess the, you know, one of the driving forces why we continue to do this.
[01:06:05] Stuart Wilson: You know, the transformations we’ve seen with people from health, uh, health wise, just for join the Life, you know, the feedback has been, you know, like amazing. And I feel we, we feel honored to be able to offer this type of stuff. And, you know, the way I’m talking now, you can tell it’s more than just offering a facility to get in an ice bath or a sauna.
[01:06:25] Stuart Wilson: It’s more than that to us. And I think our, I feel that our customers and clients know that as well.
[01:06:31] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. I like, I like the distinction. I, I know you’re saying there’s a benefit of chambers. I totally agree. I love the, some of the chamber events, but I think sometimes some of the quote networking events Yeah.
[01:06:40] Scott Pressimone: End up being more of, you know, here’s my business, here’s my business card. Yeah. Um, and. I, a lot of my friends here will have their communities which are outside of that, and so they might be motorcycle racing or they might be racketball or pickleball or whatever it may be. Yeah. But the idea is that that’s where they have some really good conversations and they build, you know, really good relationships.
[01:07:00] Scott Pressimone: Sometimes they even do, and I’m not trying to take things always back to business, but sometimes they do end up turning into business relationships because you’re not there for business relationship. It’s the side effect. Yeah. Right. Or you’re not there to say, I’m gonna go to that community event to make friends.
[01:07:13] Scott Pressimone: But it’s the side effect of enjoying other people’s companies. Yeah.
[01:07:16] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[01:07:16] Scott Pressimone: Uh, does that resonate with you?
[01:07:18] Stuart Wilson: A hundred percent. And I am, I, you know, this is something we’re gonna launch hopefully soon, is just a, a men’s meetup session where we do breath work, or maybe it includes ice baths or whatever, because the, so just, just.
[01:07:31] Stuart Wilson: Looking at the Wim Hof Method, since 2019, 2018, 2019, we have taught over 4,000 people the Wim Hof Method. That’s not including the other breathwork modalities and training we do that doesn’t include corporate events and team building exercise. So we’ve seen a lot of people who’ve had people coming to us from day 1, 6, 7 years.
[01:07:55] Stuart Wilson: Um, Robin was one of them. Uh, we’ve had people move countries and every time they pass through, come and see us, and we constantly get feedback. I personally get feedback. People say, oh, you made, you know my life so much better since coming here. Feel physically healthier. I feel happier. I’ve met some friends and what’s actually interesting in this place is that people have got business from coming here where they’ve, you know, oh my God, I didn’t realize you came.
[01:08:22] Stuart Wilson: Or, you know, we have everyone from CEOs to, you know, um. Students. We have a mix of everyone and that’s one of the things I like about what we do. So many different types of people come so the communities can turn into business. But one of the reasons it works is because breath work and the cold exposure and sauna, it makes you release feel good neurotransmitters.
[01:08:48] Stuart Wilson: So instead of relying on drinking or smoking, people have a shift in state. They feel good. People tend to be more open and connect with each other. You know, the world of breath work. If you told me 20 years ago I’d be teaching this, I’d be like, what the hell are you talking about? Um, the cold expos exposure type thing.
[01:09:06] Stuart Wilson: When we, uh, launch this if you like. We didn’t overwhelm people by giving this huge catalog of everything we can teach ’em. Again, going back to Apple, you know, the only add things when it’s right and it compliments the ecosystem. We’ve had people come to us six, seven years ago who’ve never done any breath work.
[01:09:25] Stuart Wilson: They come to us to a Wim Hof Method workshop, never done cold exposure, never done breath work. And five, six years later they’re signing up for seven to 10, uh, day breath work retreat. So it’s building trust with the customers, clients. They know they can trust us. We know, uh, we can trust them, and because then we’ve offered something new or something additional, they wanna experience it.
[01:09:51] Stuart Wilson: Even if they don’t really know about it, but now our service, this additional thing, they, they trust us to, you know, take part, you know, and it’s really good actually seeing that, you know, what do you call it? The customer, uh, the, you know, feedback and the customer’s journey. Oh, okay. Now taking people from this to here and now, the, and that’s what we, I know I mentioned before about the 1000 true fans, the Kevin Kelly.
[01:10:18] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. 1000 True Fans idea. Were, and that’s actually one of the underpinnings of our business model. We’re not trying to, with this global, you know, business offering everything online and trying to get as many clients as one, which a lot of these other places in Thailand who are offering the ice bath stuff, they’re working more in a numbers game.
[01:10:38] Stuart Wilson: I’m not really interested in that. I want to, you know, have, you know, give, um, clients deep understanding of what’s going on, and then mainly to be able to pass the tools to them. They can use without us or without anywhere else. Yeah. That’s, that’s sort of the underpinnings of how we wanna operate go from, from the beginning and going forward.
[01:10:59] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. And I’m not sure how intentional you were about that referral network, but I certainly could see it work, uh, intentional or not, because again, uh, Robin, I had mentioned introducing us, then I’m bringing in some of my friends, uh, who are in, in businesses. Right. And, uh, Jan is one of them. And, and shout out to Jan.
[01:11:17] Scott Pressimone: Uh, he came and then after he experienced the workshop, he then asked the staff to experience the workshop. Yeah. And then when I was at another workshop, then of course one of his staff, uh, brought her boyfriend along with, you know, and this sort of thing. Yeah. And, and, and now when I’m at an event. They’re bringing that up, right?
[01:11:32] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. And, and his staff are saying, oh, I was at the workshop with you. Oh, you know, you gotta bring your wife next time. It’s one of those things Yeah. That it’s just funny, once you’ve experienced it, you now have those true fans Yeah. That are promoting it. So that’s why I wanna focus on that business side of, you know, that to case that I would recommend business owners if they haven’t thought about their referral networks or things like that, that’s something they need to take away from this, is that there’s ways to set that up in a way that it can help spread the word.
[01:11:57] Scott Pressimone: Not in a artificial way, but in a natural way. ’cause when people have a good experience, they wanna share
[01:12:02] Stuart Wilson: Yeah.
[01:12:02] Scott Pressimone: That experience. But I’m curious if there’s any other recommendations or things that you think have worked for your business, uh, that you think some business owners don’t, don’t capitalize on.
[01:12:11] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. So you’re saying about the referral type stuff, you know, as official way of saying it, but, um, so our marketing and what we put out there, there’s a combination between, um, education in our marketing, um, as well as what we offer. But we purposely. Hold back on what we say in our marketing and our website because some things you just have to experience, like you’ve already said.
[01:12:38] Stuart Wilson: That also helps with the referral aspect. It was say, oh, it was more than I thought it was gonna be. Oh, I learned, you know, things I didn’t know I was gonna learn or experience. And because of that, then they tend to talk about it. Uh, so I guess in terms of other businesses, it is adding value, which you may not promote as being a, a value.
[01:13:00] Stuart Wilson: Um, but that added benefit, that added value you give, people wanna talk about that. You know, it could be as simple as customer service or, um, ease of, uh, purchasing something. There’s so many ways you can add value, you know, to, Tony Robbins talks about this a lot, um, but. I always had confidence in that because it was bound to happen.
[01:13:24] Stuart Wilson: You know, people have a powerful experience and the amount of, uh, details we, we wanna give people and help people. I, I was very confident that people are gonna show that and they want other people to experience it as well.
[01:13:39] Scott Pressimone: Now, what about Thailand specifically? Um, are there any things that were particularly difficult about either starting a business in Thailand or operating a business in Thailand or anything that was, uh, surprising to you, maybe even a positive way, um, about
[01:13:55] Scott Pressimone: Thailand?
[01:13:56] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, when, uh, we were, you know, looking at all this, so originally one of my ideas was to go the digital route. So we based in Thailand and that’s when we spoke to, uh, the BOI and uh, the benefits of going that route. But then I realized we need in-person, um, classes, you know, and we venue and stuff. And another, uh, thought was about renting spaces as well, not having a dedicated base.
[01:14:24] Stuart Wilson: Uh, that threw up some issues. So for us, the difficulty was just understanding about employing a non-Thai, you know, all the rules around that does make it easier being, uh, married to a Thai some benefits from that, but it’s still complicated, you know, still things you’ve gotta make sure in place, one, to be a legitimate business.
[01:14:46] Stuart Wilson: Secondly, make sure I’m working correctly, uh, under the correct work permit. And I have the matching visa and all that, but linked to that. What was really surprising, what made it easier is those companies which will do that for you.
[01:15:00] Scott Pressimone: Mm-hmm.
[01:15:01] Stuart Wilson: So Eve and they will explain it as well. They don’t just do it and you’re in the dark.
[01:15:05] Stuart Wilson: You can get advice and help from customers who will do the full process or just give you pointers or do certain sections as well. So I think that was a, a a a really, like when, when I’ve had friends, uh, contact me and thinking about starting businesses here and they say, I’ve read this page and, and it got updated six months ago and things have changed and I just say, reach out to some of these agents, you know, ’cause that’s their job.
[01:15:30] Stuart Wilson: They keep on top of things and, and my experience, um, uh, is, has been great. Yeah. What’s the favorite part of what you do today and what’s your least favorite part? Favorite part is I just love what I do and because I love what I do. That sort of removes all the sort of business worry behind stuff. If I was gonna be brutally honest, I really don’t care about the financial side of things.
[01:15:56] Stuart Wilson: You are probably like, oh my God, I don’t wanna listen to this on a business podcast or video. But I think because of that, it makes working in the business so much easier and I have a solid underpinning of what we do is to ultimately help people and ’cause it helped me and I wanna share that, um. So the easiest is that just doing what we’re doing and seeing how what we are helping people, the feedback and, and I’ve always, um, I’ve always said to Kam and explained, ’cause she does worry about certain things.
[01:16:31] Stuart Wilson: I’m not in this, we’re not following hype, we were doing this before people really understood it. We’re not following trends. And longevity proves your business in the end. Right. You know, if you can be, uh, around a long time and continuing to offer what you do and, and maintaining the standards and things like that, uh, that makes me happy.
[01:16:52] Stuart Wilson: I love it. You know, my degree is in design, industrial design. So the, the creative aspect behind it, uh, I really love and I love doing what I, um, I do. The, uh, negatives behind it is currently we are an in-person business when we go on holiday. Then we don’t make money, we don’t do it. And it’s so funny, we have clients who, who know we’re gonna go away.
[01:17:16] Stuart Wilson: Like we’ve just come back from Mexico. I get invited to be a speaker at the 20th year of the Breath Festival in Cabo, Mexico. Uh, Dan Brulé, one of my mentors and I wanna be students and teachers. Um, a lot of our regular clients who come every Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays, they were like, oh my God, what are we gonna do?
[01:17:38] Stuart Wilson: Can we climb over the walls? Can you give us the details for filling the ice? And things like that. So when we do go away, it’s, it, it’s, that’s the bad side of it, because one I want. To carry on offering what we do to our regular clients, but then also the, the business side of things obviously takes a hit.
[01:17:58] Stuart Wilson: So I guess that’s the negative side of things. Do you see yourself doing this for another 20 years? To be honest, I see doing this till I drop dead sounds weird. Uh, that the sum, it sounds super simple when you talk about breathing. You know, I tell my older brother, he’s like, you pay this much to go on a to learn how to breathe.
[01:18:16] Stuart Wilson: You know, you are, you crazy. But when you’re in this and the the, the depth we wanna go into and what we offer, there’s so much to learn. There’s so much to understand. There’s so much for me to, to try and do and then offer that to clients. Like there’s, there’s certain things I’ve done with breath work and things like that, or the modality, uh, modalities, which have not resonated with me, so I don’t offer it.
[01:18:41] Stuart Wilson: But it’s, you know, it’s been, uh, an experience for me as well. I can honestly see me doing this forever. One of the reasons, and going back to the, our business model, I think we talked about this before, we purposely made our business siloed. So we’re just in this breathwork sector, if you like. We don’t want to offer things which don’t compliment breathwork.
[01:19:06] Stuart Wilson: We could, there’s so many things we could do. Um, we purposely stick to this, uh, siloed, um, container of sticking with breathwork and everything that compliments it because I think the future is not a business that can offer everything at a lower level. I think the future is people wanna seek out the experts or the services or the business that have the depth of knowledge and understanding, which other places don’t.
[01:19:37] Stuart Wilson: Because with social media and how we see this to get shallow amounts of information, there’s so many places out there, not just in our industry, wellness industry or whatever you wanna call it, other businesses that have a shallow understanding of information. ’cause it’s so easy to get and then build businesses around that.
[01:19:57] Stuart Wilson: Uh, I think the future and the successful businesses, businesses are the ones that have the depth and breadth of understanding. I think that’s the future. I might be wrong, but I think that’s the way it’s going with marketing. I think that’s going with, um, technology. I think it’s going with especially like the wellness industry.
[01:20:16] Scott Pressimone: Hmm. Now you’ve, you’ve built this business in Thailand, right? You’ve, you have some roots here now, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, how do you feel about Thailand, uh, after being here for so many years? And how do you think of the future of Thailand? Are you positive about it? Do you think things are headed in the good direction or, um, are, are you seeing some challenges?
[01:20:36] Stuart Wilson: Well, I’ve lived in a bunch of different countries. Dubai, one of ’em, or lived in different cities in the uk, um, lived in different countries in Europe, and Thailand’s is the place that only ever felt like home. Um, other places never did. And that’s probably why I sort of started setting roots here. You know, it can, uh, in, and to be honest, when I travel and go different places, there’s not many, if any, that I wanna stay longer as opposed to come back to Thailand.
[01:21:09] Stuart Wilson: And what I particularly like about Bangkok, and I’ve lived in, you know, some of the major cities, uh, around the world is Bangkok is unique. Because it’s design your own lifestyle. If you want a high-end luxury lifestyle, you can do it. If you want the party and lifestyle, you can do it. If you want the holistic wellness side of things or meditation type things, you can do that.
[01:21:35] Stuart Wilson: So that’s what’s unique about, uh, Bangkok. And even though my wife Kam, she’s from the North, she loves living in Bangkok. We, you know, when we do travel or we go and do events in Phuket and the islands, we like it, but we, we, we always can’t wait to come back to Bangkok. What I also like about, about Bangkok is that you’ve got people who live here, the expat community, and you also have a large, uh, tourism as well.
[01:22:01] Stuart Wilson: So in terms of business operations, we get these waves of, um, the, the tourist type customers. But then we know when it’s not tourist season, we continue to. Get customers and allows us to build a community. One of the concerns as from a business point of view, if you are on these islands, the community’s not gonna be a long lasting because majority of them are gonna be people who are just on holiday.
[01:22:29] Stuart Wilson: So yeah, I, I see us being here long term, uh, and continuing doing what we do.
[01:22:36] Scott Pressimone: Now you speak with some business owners, whether they became friends of yours ’cause they come here often or, or not, but uh, I’m curious, are there any common mistakes that you see business owners make?
[01:22:46] Stuart Wilson: From what I’ve picked up on over the years, it does seem that maybe not employing the right people or maybe in some instances rely on relying more on non-Thai, which adds additional costs and things.
[01:23:04] Stuart Wilson: You know, and that’s one of the things I’ve discovered living in Thailand, in Bangkok, that it does seem that the sort of. Maybe not as much now, uh, with the younger generation, but maybe in the past there seems to be this default belief that anyone outside of Thailand is better than a Thai person. Like for, for example, the yoga, uh, classes, and I’ve been to yoga retreats with, with Kam and yoga studios and they’ll have like guest, um, non Thai yoga teachers.
[01:23:35] Stuart Wilson: And this, this is just one example that I’ve experienced, and these classes have this big buzz around it and people wanna come. But then the, the Thai uh, teachers who, in my opinion, and from Kam’s opinion as well, who are amazing, don’t tend to get that, uh, sort of hype and then followers. And, uh, I, and from what I understand, it’s that people default thinking a non-Thai person is better in some way.
[01:24:01] Stuart Wilson: From my experience and the people we are working for us, I have never had a problem finding a Thai person who can do exactly, if not more than I want. So, yeah. So that, that actually blows my mind, you know, and I think it’s great. And that’s one of the things we always do as a business, is everything we do is to help Thai people as well as, of course, expats and non-Thai people.
[01:24:26] Stuart Wilson: But, and that’s where Kam comes in. She knows what’s needed or what people are looking for, what people, uh, people want.
[01:24:33] Scott Pressimone: Yeah, it’s a great point. It reminds me a lot of, when you were saying how Bangkok has, or Thailand has a place for everyone, there’s different things you can have the high class lifestyle, whatever.
[01:24:41] Scott Pressimone: Well, it’s the same sort of thing I think with people is that some people might have hired someone who wasn’t good, whether that be a foreigner or a Thai, and then they over generalize, not realizing that they’ve just only maybe found people in a certain area or in a certain network they haven’t actually explored and realized.
[01:24:56] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. Uh, there’s a ton of talent. You have to know where to look for it.
[01:24:59] Stuart Wilson: Yeah. You know, I see. In terms of marketing, I see some of, uh, you know, those. I can, I think of one client who’s, who’s, uh, been here and she does, she pulls her adventures on social media and they’re editing. And the time or the skills she puts into this just for herself.
[01:25:18] Stuart Wilson: And even, uh, Instagram and social media are locked, so it’s not even open to the public, it’s just for her friends. I see that and go, oh my God, that is, like, that’s high level content creation that she’s just doing as a passion. So, uh, yeah, I think it’s great. And that’s, if we do expand, um, like in person stuff, in, you know, satellite venues or, uh, instructors or facilitators, my priority would be to get Thai staff, Thai people.
[01:25:50] Stuart Wilson: One, because they already have a deep understanding of things like, you know, meditation and, uh, you know, spirituality and things which can come into play with what we do. So yeah, I think it’s great.
[01:26:02] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. Is there anything that we didn’t discuss that you wish we had?
[01:26:06] Stuart Wilson: Yeah, I just wanna clarify my. My, um, the way I feel about what others assume are competitors.
[01:26:16] Stuart Wilson: So if you look at the gym world, right? So you’ve got CrossFit dedicated gyms, you’ve got gyms that, you know, maybe just dedicated to high rocks, which is a big thing at the moment. Then you’ve got sort of the overall maybe lifestyle should call like virgin Active and fitness first. And then you’ve got dedicated places, which I love, like the muscle factories.
[01:26:36] Stuart Wilson: I don’t dunno if you know much about them and bar the owner. He’s, I, I love his content. What he puts out there, it’s no frills. It’s straight to the point. And he, he’s the way, he, he markets himself and lets the gym facility, uh, do the marketing for him. Yeah. Uh, you know exactly what you get. I tend to like and appreciate these specialist.
[01:27:00] Stuart Wilson: Businesses, and that’s what we are now, does these other gyms, does the CrossFit gyms worry and think Virgin Active or Fitness First as a competitor? Okay. Even though it’s same industry, they might have very similar equipment. They might certainly have the same type of qualified staff, but because they’re differentiated in what the specialist in or what they’re experts in, um, it’s sort of not a worry.
[01:27:27] Stuart Wilson: The people who love Virgin Active, who go to, you know, they have multi multitude of classes, Pilates, exercise, dance, or some dancing the other day, you know, that’s the gym we go to. Um, CrossFit gyms are not worried about that. Uh, in fact, like what my point was earlier, the people that. Care about health and fitness.
[01:27:48] Stuart Wilson: Uh, gonna help people to discover CrossFit gyms or Muscle Factory. You know, someone who goes Virgin Active, who then gets really into the bodybuilding or power lifting side, they’re looking for the next level. They would go to bats Muscle Factory, and that’s the way I see what we are. We are. We’ve avoided looking like this high-end, expensive wellness thing.
[01:28:12] Stuart Wilson: In fact, I wanna avoid that completely because we’re giving, uh, customers tools that they don’t ever need us. So we don’t try to dress things up. But these other places and hotels and gyms and other venues popping up, offering cold exposure and ice baths and sauna, I think is a net gain for everyone.
[01:28:32] Stuart Wilson: Mainly for the clients. As long as it’s the, the safety is at the forefront. So I think that’s what I’d like to clarify. And um, like I said, from day one, we’re called breath inspired. We’re not called ice bath inspired. Uh, the longevity for us is breath work, training, coaching, development, the things we do like, um, Wim Hof Method, oxygen Advantage, which is sports performance.
[01:29:01] Stuart Wilson: Uh, we’ve trained some of the top CrossFit athletes in Asia with that. Uh, we also do instructor training with that. So if you wanna be an instructor in Oxygen Advantage, I’m the only master instructor in Asia, so we do that as well. Then we’ve got guests, speakers such as Dan Brulé, uh, they call him the Bruce Lee of Breathwork.
[01:29:21] Stuart Wilson: So we purposely stick to what we want to teach, uh, without diluting our service offering. And I don’t even like to think of competitors because if we have 1000 true fans and what we do and we’re changing people’s lives for the better. I don’t really worry about what other businesses are doing. I just worry more about the health and safety of clients.
[01:29:45] Scott Pressimone: Absolutely.
[01:29:46] Stuart Wilson: Well,
[01:29:46] Scott Pressimone: Stu I really appreciate
[01:29:47] Stuart Wilson: the
[01:29:47] Scott Pressimone: time today. I, I’d love if you could just share if people wanna learn more Yeah. About breath inspired, uh, or connect with you.
[01:29:54] Stuart Wilson: Uh, where should they go? Yeah. So the, the best way to find us, you know, you can go to breath inspired.com, uh, the bottom of the page, we’ve got the, our line link so you can message us online.
[01:30:06] Stuart Wilson: We’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram. Uh, so that’s the best way to reach out on the website as well. We have a listing of all our events, special events and our regular stuff. But if you have any questions about what we do or how we can help, I’m happy to help you as well. And, uh, even corporate training, team building, you brought a team of people.
[01:30:26] Stuart Wilson: We don’t really promote that at the moment just because we’re so busy. Uh, so reach out if, if something we’ve said or we do sort of resonates or be just curious, let us know. Go on our website’s, got a contact form there, and message us through any social media. Awesome.
[01:30:42] Scott Pressimone: Yeah. Thank you so much for the time.
[01:30:43] Scott Pressimone: I really do appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Cheers.
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